


Cleanup on Aisle Three

by cryogenia



Series: Keep a light on for me [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky also has boundary issues, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Natasha has boundary issues, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, bdsm relationship, he's just a regular everyday Joe you guys, though they don't necessarily feature in this fic, with a cyborg arm and a sketchy under the table job and maybe also a burner phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:43:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4536669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryogenia/pseuds/cryogenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The new ‘all natural’ market on the ground floor of the Skyline 21 is the green grocer’s equivalent to an Apple Genius bar: wide aisles, minimalist displays, and lots and lots of cheerful light.</p>
<p>Bucky only resorts to it in the direst of circumstances.</p>
<p>(For the Tumblr request: "Stucky & grocery shopping" - now with a whole lot of bonus Natasha.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cleanup on Aisle Three

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick few thousand words set in the same 'verse as "Light 'em up". (It's not 100% necessary to read that fic before coming to this drabble, but the ending may make a lot more sense ;) This short fic is by request from the prompt "Stucky & grocery shopping" - now with bonus Natasha.

The new ‘all natural’ market on the ground floor of the Skyline 21 is the green grocer’s equivalent to an Apple Genius bar: wide aisles, minimalist displays, and lots and lots of cheerful light.

Bucky only resorts to it in the direst of circumstances.

It’s not that it’s completely awful. Sure, everything’s priced three dollars higher, but on the weekends he’s usually using Steve’s money (Steve has a stupid amount of money). They also have a wider selection of actual food - fresh fruits, meats, fancy vegetables - than any of the bodegas closer to his place. It’s the sheer fact that this is necessary, on Saturday of all days. Not even noon, and his shadow is stuck like glue. So like any protective creature, here he is five blocks over, dragging the proverbial wing to entice trouble away from his favorite bodega. (Even if that means he can’t get proper Jumex. All the guava juice here is organic and full of chia seeds.)

His phone buzzes angrily against his chest. Bucky makes sure to angle the screen so his obnoxious tail can peep it.

_ <Where are you?> _

_[Sorry, no churros]  
_ _[Met a buddy of yours. Had 2 go 2 the coop]_

_< Oh for God’s sake>_

A stringful of angry faces and poop emoji follows. Bucky can’t say he disagrees.

He turns back to an unnaturally perfect pyramid of red apples, pretending that he cares very deeply about pesticide-free produce. An irrational urge makes him want to yank a big, fat one right out of the center just to watch the stack fall.

“Well, that wasn’t very kind,” his tail says.

She’s at his right elbow, a lithe, powerful woman rendered mundane in an owl hoodie and distressed jeans. Possibly, she even passes for fashionable. Steve's tried to disguise himself as a hipster, but there's always something slightly off about the execution. She knows how to blend in details so the 'quirky' brass knuckle rings fade into the overall picture. Her big steampunk locket takes most of the attention.

Her hair is also red again this week. Darker this time, but it still makes his head hurt.

“Steve told you not to follow me,” Bucky says.

Her lip curls up in an approximation of a wry grin.

“You’ll excuse me if Steve’s not the most reliable source of intel.”

No, he won’t. He can feel his arm’s plates shifting beneath his own hoodie, instinctively preparing a swing. An apple isn’t a good ranged instrument - nothing is at this range, anyway - but he has the urge to whip one at her anyway.

“He still trusts you. Least you could do is try to trust him.”

The redhead snorts.

“And you wonder why I question his judgement.”

All ten fingers flex and flare, metal and flesh, from one hand to the other.

“You know, they got me working on this thing called ‘personal autonomy’? Means you give a shit when somebody makes a choice for themself. Might want to look it up some time.”

That hits a nerve somewhere beneath that flippant persona. The Widow’s expression goes chalkboard blank. She switches into Russian and the chill of it seeps down to his bones.

“ _Cut the crap, Soldier. Steve is compromised and you know it. He’s never going to be objective about you._ ”

“ _And you are?_ ” he snaps back. “ _Because you only threw your entire life away for him._ ”

Bucky heard on a nature show once in a motel that human faces are a novelty: most primates smile to show aggression. He sees it in the sudden, blood-red parting of her lips.

“ _I threw away a lie, because it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t ‘for’ anyone_.”

“ _But you still think you owe him._ ”

“ _I pay my debts._ ” Her eyes glitter, predatory and strange. “ _However and whenever that means._ ”

He looks at the apples again, their infuriating, mathematically perfect arrangement. He could kick the stand out beneath their display and cause them to avalanche. Buy him the second to pull out his boot knife. Steve knows he’s armed, every second of every day. He’d never take away Bucky’s right to defend himself.

If it’s worth it. Against one of Steve’s other fucked-up friends. Bucky takes a deep breath, breathes the fire in.

Swallows it back down.

“Well, if this is a shovel talk, it’s a piss-poor job. Cause I guarantee, everything you got to say?  I already said three hundred times over. You think you’re the only one who ever tried to keep that idiot safe?  Now grab me a cucumber or shut the fuck up.”

He plucks an apple from the very top of the stack and plunks it into his handbasket, right next to the goddamn $10 jerky and $15 maple-almond butter she’s forcing him to buy.

The Widow actually looks taken aback for a moment. Schools her face into a more neutral expression.

“Is that what you’re doing?” she asks. “‘Keeping him safe’?”

“Cucumber,” Bucky says again. “And you don’t get to bring that up here. ‘S private.”

It goes against every ounce of his training to hold out his vulnerable flesh hand to her, but after a pause, she sighs and relays an English cuke.

“Thanks.”

“ _I still want to talk to him,_ ” the Widow says in Russian again. “ _He’s not answering my texts._ ”

“Maybe cause he doesn’t want to?” Bucky smirks. “He’s had his hands full.”

“ _Now who’s bringing it up._ ”

“You started it.”

“ _This is childish. He’s my teammate._ ”

Christ on a cracker. He doesn’t like that she knows how to get under his skin, like she’s got the instruction manual on how to push his buttons. The instinct is there to snap right back, that he was on Steve’s team first, that he’s been here longer. That Steve’s his. That’s what she’s searching for though, petty possessiveness.

“And he told you to butt out,” Bucky says instead. “So maybe you should. Look, I--”

He takes a deep breath, counts the beats of his heart in his head. Name five things that are real in this room. Grocery basket. Green cucumber. Stack of apples.

Red, hair like blood from an artery. Tundra grass, spongy in the summer thaw.

“I know what it feels like, all right?” he says. Some of it, all of it, why not. “My life is Swiss fucking cheese, and there’s days I wouldn’t trust Steve with me either. But I don’t get to make that choice for him, you understand?  I want to live my life, he’s got to have his, and that means I gotta respect his dumb ass.”

His metal fingers are shaking, clicking back and forth in a way that doesn’t mean recalibration. Bucky curls them into a discrete fist.

“Steve stands up for the fucking worst ideas sometimes, but that’s also the only reason you and me are still on this godforsaken planet, so here’s what the fuck we’re gonna do. Five days outta seven he goes up to play at your little summer camp and I may not like it, but you’re his team. We talked about it, he heard me out, but here’s the goddamn thing: he’s stuck on you. So it goes against every instinct I have but I let him go and I don’t watch the news and at the end of the week he comes back. And I’m grateful for it, okay?  I’m grateful I got him.”

And then it’s over, lanced like a boil. It’s the longest speech he’s made - to anyone, maybe even Steve - in the past God-knows-how-long and it leaves him hollowed out. He looks down at his sad expensive cucumber and tries not to laugh. Sometimes that comes out as crying.

“He’s your friend, goddamn it, act like it,” Bucky rasps. “You worry about what he’s doing, you take it to him straight. But you goddamn will respect what he asks.”

The Widow stares at him for a long, quiet moment and then ducks her own head, a perfect mirror of his pose. He wonders if they’ll ever remember why they both know how to hide behind their hair.

He wonders when they’ll figure out how to be friends.

“Well,” the redhead says, pushing her bangs back. If it looks like she’s scrubbing at her eyes, he doesn’t mention it. “Obligatory shovel talk?”

Bucky leans against the corner of the apple cart. “Shoot.”

“If I ever find a mark on him that he didn’t ask for…insert your most ludicrous threat here!”

“That’s a lot of room to work with,” Bucky says, shrugging his left shoulder.

“Wolves could be involved,” she agrees. “Always wanted to work with wolves. Sharp teeth.”

“Just like girls,” Bucky says. And there must be a ghost of his old charm still present somewhere, or else another cobweb knocked free. Natasha flashes him a brief smile - a real one - before vanishing into the aisles.

He waits until she’s safely out of sight before he pulls out his phone. There’s a long list of messages waiting, each one more insistent than the last.

_< Sorry>_  
_< Tried calling her>_  
_< She’s not picking up>_  
_< She with you??>  
_ _< U okay??>_

_[Yeah]_ Bucky swipes back.  _[I took care of it. We had a nice chat.]_

_[I think we have come to terms.]_

_< Why does that sound ominous>_

_[Bc I’m always ominous]_

He includes a pile of ghost and ninja emoji, the closest he can come to ‘dread legendary assassin’.

_ <Bullshit>  
_ _ <Does this look ominous to you> _

A picture arrives a few seconds later, a fuzzy, awkward shot of Steve’s long legs and torso wrapped up in Bucky’s favorite blanket: a soft Adventure Time plush with cartoon pictures of the cute little videogame person.

He’s also got one foot over the blue paint tape line marked along the floor next to the mattress. Deliberately angled so it’s visible in the picture.

Bucky grins at his phone.

_[And I told you to toe the line]  
_ _[What the fuck did I say?]_

There's a delay, not that he's surprised. It's hard to type with your hand on your dick.

_< You’re going to keep me in bed all weekend>  
_ _< Unless I get permission, I don’t cross the tape?>_

_[Right]_  
_[We’ll discuss your punishment when I get home]  
_ _[How is that for ominous? ;) ]_

_< oh god good>  
_ _< very very good>_

But first, Bucky’s going to a real bodega to pick up normal juice and M&Ms.

 

**Author's Note:**

> On a personal note, I've always wanted to write a fic where super spies tailing their friends "for their protection" is depicted as kind of creepy. (In real life, a tail would be utterly terrifying!)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Cleanup on Aisle Three](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7184912) by [sallysparrow017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallysparrow017/pseuds/sallysparrow017)




End file.
